


Treat You Better

by ChaseTheSun



Series: No More Love Songs [7]
Category: Red Velvet (K-pop Band)
Genre: Angst, F/F, just remembered I have an ao3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-14
Updated: 2019-09-14
Packaged: 2020-10-18 10:21:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20637581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChaseTheSun/pseuds/ChaseTheSun
Summary: Sooyoung knows that her Seungwan-unnie deserves the world. And that Joohyun-unnie is supoosed to give it to her. At least, that's how it's supposed to be.





	Treat You Better

Sooyoung goes on a lot of convenience store runs in the middle of the night. Sometimes it’s because their schedule doesn’t finish until it’s incredibly late. Sometimes she has pre-sleep cravings she can’t fight off and there’s nothing in the dorm that can satisfy them.

Mostly because she knows that if it’s dark outside and she lingers by the doorway when putting on shoes, Seungwan-unnie will come out of nowhere, already dressed in outside clothes, and offer to walk her to the convenience store and back.

It’s been that way since they were both trainees and Sooyoung hopes that it won’t ever change.

Seungwan-unnie usually spends the entire time with her chest puffed up, arms swinging like a boxer, daring anyone to get in their way. Seungwan-unnie’s facemask hides most of her face and her glare really isn’t that effective. It’s not intimidating at all, but it’s Seungwan-unnie and it’s pretty cute so Sooyoung ends up with a tiny guard dog.

She is taller, with longer legs and a longer stride, but somehow Seungwan-unnie always manages to walk faster and Sooyoung has to power walk to keep up. She thinks it’s all down to intensity.

Seungwan-unnie is always intense. When she’s singing, when she’s dancing, when she’s talking, dedication and determination seeps from every pore and Sooyoung can never tear her eyes away. Even in the middle of the night, when there’s no audience to see and no eyes to judge, she’s still intense.

Some nights, when she’s feeling particularly brave, or if the weather is particularly cold and provides her with an excuse, she’ll hook her elbow around Seungwan-unnie’s arm, wrap her fingers around what she knows is a defined bicep under an extremely fat jacket, and lean on Seungwan-unnie’s shoulder.

Their height difference always gives her a neck cramp. It’s always worth it. This is the only time when Seungwan-unnie is hers, only hers.

Sometimes her finger brush against the back of Seungwan-unnie's hands and Sooyoung cannot feel the cold for the rest of the night.

Sooyoung is fiddling aimlessly with a receipt while she waits for Seungwan-unnie to finish off her ramyun. It’s diet week and they’ve somehow managed to keep their conveniece store contraband from being discovered. They’ve secluded themselves underneath the stairs to scarf down their smuggled goods before they’re discovered.

“Sooyoung-ah, what are you folding?” Seungwan-unnie has finished eating and is peering at the receip in interest.

“What?” Sooyoung’s hands still.

“With the receipt? Aren’t you doing origami?”

“No. I don’t know how to fold anything. I’ve always wanted to learn though.”

Seungwan-unnie shifts closer at the admission, the tips of her hair almost brushing at Sooyoung’s shoulders. “I’ll teach you then.” She says with a smile.

“I didn’t know you were an origami master. What other secret skills do you have?” Sooyoung tucks blue-dyed hair behind a cute ear.

Seungwan-unnie only smiles wider. “I can only make cranes.”

“Show me anyway.”

Under the dimly lit stairs, with ramyun cups scattered about, Seungwan-unnie takes her clumsy hands and guides her through the motions.

Later, when Sooyoung looks back, she’ll realize that somethng changes in her then. She starts seeing Seungwan-unnie in a new light. And she doesn’t stop.

It births s a new tradtion. Sooyoung doesn’t quite know if it’s a tradition. Is it a tradtion if only one person does it?

From then on, she keeps every single receipt. Every time they head to the convenience store together, she tucks them away safely in her wallet and takes them home.

The years go by and Sooyoung makes crane after crane. She never makes anything else.

Sooyoung is taking off her heels when she hears Joohyun-unnie squeal from the kitchen. She rolls her eyes and kicks off her remaining heel harder than necessary. The unnies are probably glued together trying to cook or bake or doing something equally saccharine. Ugh.

We all know who your favourite is. There’s no need to rub it in.

They say that they’re not dating, but they might as well be. Sooyoung wishes that they would just put a label on it already. At least that way it would be easier. For who, she doesn’t know.

Sooyoung sneaks halfway down the hallway to her room before turning around and heading to the kitchen.

She probably has a masochistic streak she hasn’t admitted to, because seeing Seungwan-unnie sends her heart soaring up, up, up. Seeing her with Joohyun-unnie always sends it plummeting down.

But the rush she gets from seeing Seungwan-unnie is worth it. It feels as if her heart is at the amusement park. Each and every ride gives her a high. And she always crashes after. Sooyoung calls it her carnival of cheap thrills.

She loves Joohyun-unnie, she really does. Joohyun-unnie has taken such good care of them throughout the years, sacrificed parts of herself to keep them safe and whole, has always been kind and gentle and good. But sometimes it feels as if she is a flame while Sooyoung is candle and that she will never burn bright enough.

She swears she sees the sun reflected in Seungwan-unnies eyes and hates the bitterness that consumes her after.

She pokes her head into the kitchen and has to blink twice. It’s empty and the kitchen light is off. Spots of light dot the counters and after squinting her eyes, she makes out candles in the haze.

Something sweet tickles at her nose and she manages to make out the faint ticking of the oven timer. There’s two trays of neat little circles. One entirely purple. One multicoloured. And then there’s a tray of completely misshapen rainbow shapes that she can’t possibly identify.

There’s more giggling, this time from the direction of the living room.

Sooyoung is pretty sure that all these candles are a fire hazard, even though it’s terribly romantic, and that she should probably drag her unnies out of whatever confined space they’ve sequestered themselves in and back into the kitchen to make sure nothing catches fire. Those candles are a fire hazard, after all.

Seungwan-unnie’s admission that she once folded 1000 cranes for her love is adorable. That she did it as a seven-year-old just makes it even more adorable. It explains why she only knows how to fold cranes and nothing else.

Sometimes Sooyoung wonders if she still folds cranes and gifts them. If there’s a dainty little jar filled to the brim with purple cranes somewhere.

Sooyoung wants to know. But Sooyoung also doesn’t want to know.

Whenever she’s inside Joohyun-unnie’s room for some reason or another, she has to fixate on something that’s not her surroundings. Like Joohyun-unnie’s mole, or the lamp, or the doorknob.

She’s slipped up once or twice. Scanning shelves and racks for glimpses of purple before catching herself and returning her attention to... safer things.

She finds them on the couch. With the lights off. Joohyun-unnie has Seungwan-unnie pinned beneath her with one hand, tickling her exposed midriff with the other. Seungwan-unnie’s laughter sounds unusual to Sooyoung’s ears. They’re a little huskier than they’re meant to be. Maybe she’s sick?

They’re in an intimate little bubble and Sooyoung would really hate to burst it. Well, she should.

“Seungwan-unnie, Joohyun-unnie, your candles are still lit. Please put them out or go back into the kitchen.”

Joohyun-unnie practically flies off the couch and stands up to face her. Sooyoung thinks she has a guilty look on her face, but it’s not a look she’s accustomed to seeing or reading.

“Sooyoung-ah. Welcome home.” Joohyun-unnie is being strange. But Sooyoung has never been too sure what’s going on in that head of hers anyway. So she shrugs and turns toward her favourite unnie.

“Seung-“ That’s not Seungwan-unnie.

Joohyun-unnie had been on top of, practically straddling, a girl that isn’t Seungwan-unnie, and Sooyoung thinks that she might choke on the indignation that is crawling up her throat. She thinks it’s probably a better idea if she chokes Joohyun-unnie with it instead.

Sooyoung marches over to the wall and aggressively flicks the lights on before heading back to the couch. “Joohyun-unnie.” She crosses her arms and waits for an answer to her unvoiced question.

“Sooyoung-ah, this is my old friend from high school.”

Said friend gets up from the couch and Sooyoung takes her in. Purple sweatshirt, tiny shorts, and fluffy socks. She dresses like Seungwan-unnie, she’s tiny like Seungwan-unnie, she even has a fringe like Seungwan-unnie, they could be mistaken as twins from a distance; Sooyoung forgives herself for mistaking a complete stranger for her favourite unnie.

“She’s one of your members isn’t she, Joohyun-ah,” Not-Seungwan-unnie says, waving a sweater paw and brushing the fringe out of her eyes.

Sooyoung catches a glimpse of a familiar ring.

Joohyun-unnie lets out one of her weird sounds and begins to nod frantically.

“Unnie is teaching me how to make macarons!"

“Are you any good?” Sooyoung has high standards. Seungwan-unnie is a baker after all.

“I own a store.” Well, she’s probably not bad. But nobody can beat Seungwan-unnie’s baking.

Sooyoung looks at Joohyun-unnie and her heart plummets. There’s an all too familiar look in her eyes, adoring and honey-sweet, and Sooyoung feels something sink into her skin. It’s part disgust, part fear, it feels as if the last rays of warmth and light from a dying star has finally faded, and all that’s left is the cold and the dark.

She pieces the seemingly innocuous pieces and gets a very uncomfortable picture. Sooyoung fervently hopes that she’s wrong.

“Joohyun-unnie, where’s Seungwan unnie?”

Joohyun-unnie does not look toward her, does not tear her eyes away. Her voice is distant and Sooyoung doesn’t notice a single flicker of emotion. “She went to the convenience store.”

It’s one in the morning and Seungwan-unnie is sitting stiffly on a bench looking suspiciously blank. For someone that’s known for their overly expressive face, it’s obvious that something is wrong.

Sooyoung sidles next to her, until their thighs are pressed together, and wraps an around a pale shoulder. Seungwan-unnie’s skin is freezing to the touch and Sooyoung freaks out.

“Unnie! Why didn’t you bring a jacket?! You’re going to get sick.”

“I’m fine. I don’t feel cold at all.”

Her teeth aren’t chattering, her shoulders aren’t shaking, and her nose isn’t runny. She seems perfectly at home in the cold. But Sooyoung knows that it’s the mental numbness that make her feel this way.

She likes to think that out of all of them, she knows Seungwan-unnie best.

Seungwan-unnie allows herself to be overwhelmed by emotion. It builds in her chest like a wave, slowly swelling, slowly gaining momentum, before it all comes crashing down. She surfs this wave, she processes the emotion, and she learns from it.

But she knows that sometimes, Seungwan-unnie feels nothing at all. That the wave is there, that it’s building, but Seungwan-unnie can’t feel anything until it hits. And it always leaves her devastated.

Sooyoung knows that the moment the wave hits Seungwan-unnie will feel everything, all at once. And that she will break.

She pulls Seungwan-unnie into her lap, tucks her beneath her chin and and wraps her coat around the both of them. She slides her arms around a slim waist and rubs soothingly at her unnie’s back. Seungwan-unnie melts against her instantly and Sooyoung tries not to coo.

“I said I wasn’t cold.”

“Well I was, and I wanted you to warm me up.”

“Pretty sure you’re warming me up instead.”

“Let me indulge a little.”

And it is an indulgence. Because Sooyoung rarely has her unnie all to herself. It’s never just the two of them. Even now Joohyun-unnie’s ghost lingers between them.

But Sooyoung will take what she can get.

She wants to be greedy. She wants to relish the feeling of having Seungwan-unnie just to herself.

It’s definitely selfish. But Sooyoung is tired of having to share her unnie with everyone - with her other members, with the world, with Joohyun-unnie.

And Seungwan-unnie always has to give. Chips away little bits of herself to share with everyone else. She never learnt to be selfish, and so Sooyoung will be selfish enough for the both of them. She wants to possess the biggest piece, no matter how unlikely that might be.

When Seungwan-unnie rubs a cold nose against the underside of her jaw, Sooyoung resumes rubbing at her unnie’s back.

“Mmmhmm.”

“Are you purring?”

“Mmmm.”

“You’re definitely my cutest unnie. No competition.”

They stay until Sooyoung starts to feel the cold dig into her bones. If the don’t head inside soon, somebody is going to get sick. So she gets up with Seungwan-unnie in her arms and begins to head back.

Sooyoung says nothing about the trembling that starts when they’re halfway home, says nothing about the sniffles that are smothered against her shoulders as they silently slip into the dorms, past the lit kitchen and the laughter, says nothing about the way small hands dig into her shoulders and the tears that wet her neck.


End file.
